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Endangered Languages

About New Parent

Endangered Language Program

Across the globe, children in countless cultures are losing the language of their parents and grandparents. As each new generation becomes ever more isolated from its past, its ancestral language slips farther out of reach—endangered and at risk of not surviving. As many as 50 to 90 percent of the world's 6,800 languages may be extinct within this century.

Rosetta Stone® founded its Endangered Language Program in 2004 to help stem the tide against this phenomenon. In 2011, the program stopped accepting applications for new software development, but we continue to support our partner groups in their implementation of Rosetta Stone software in their schools, homes, and communities.

Through this unique program we collaborated with indigenous groups around the world to develop Rosetta Stone software specifically designed to help revitalize these at-risk languages. To see locations and descriptions of Rosetta Stone Endangered Language projects, click here.

Groups that sponsored an Endangered Language Program project translated, adapted, and customized their edition of the software in conjunction with Rosetta Stone experts to make it culturally and linguistically relevant to their community. Sponsors retained ownership of the language materials developed during the project, and they gained exclusive sales and distribution rights over their finished edition.

The flexibility of the Rosetta Stone method allowed our solution to be used as part of an integrated school language program, or independently by children or adults to reinforce language use and provide unlimited exposure to fluent native speakers.

Through grants provided by Rosetta Stone, children of the Chitimacha Tribe of Louisiana and children attending Navajo Nation schools throughout Arizona, New Mexico and Utah are now learning their heritage language using Rosetta Stone software.

Endangered Languages

We preserve more than words. Around the world, indigenous communities are working to preserve and revitalize their languages with Rosetta Stone